


Got It Wrong

by soberloki



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Beards (Relationships), M/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-30
Updated: 2013-11-30
Packaged: 2018-01-03 00:49:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1063695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soberloki/pseuds/soberloki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean misses Sam when he leaves for Stanford, but it's not forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Got It Wrong

When Sam is gone, really gone this time and not just for a week or two to live off of Pop Rocks and Mr Pibb and Funyuns, Dean packs up the motel room. He can't find his extra-large Zeppelin t-shirt, the one he wears when he wants to look younger for cons, and decides he's too old to be playing a teenager anyway.

John says nothing. He's said enough, and Dean doesn't know what he'd do if his father _did_ speak to him as he works.

Dean misses Sam. It's brutal for six months, and then it's painful each morning when he wakes up for six more. After that, he figures he's got it beat, and the denial really sets in.

They hunt, more frequently, finding more vicious _things_ as they go, across America and back again. They're in Portland, Oregon; John ignores it when Dean disappears with Baby for twelve hours and comes back furious and frustrated and silent behind clenched jaws.

Crossing the country again, Dean meets Cassie. She's smart and sharp and she takes no shit and he thinks, maybe, he loves her. He thinks Sam would like her, and they'd be friends. They could talk about philosophy and art or something. He's not surprised that he fucks it all up with her, and he doesn't tell John why he's suddenly so eager to leave.

While they hunt, working apart or together, John and Dean keep communication to a minimum. It's what they've always done, and it worked for years, so Dean can't understand why he suddenly feels the need to _talk_ to people, why he wants to talk to his father. He locks the impulse away in the box he keeps his heart in, and forcibly forgets where he put the key.

It's been three years. He sends Sam a text message and spends an hour on a stool in a diner with his phone in front of him and nothing on his mind. The waitress, Kyla, pours him a refill and says, _think you've been stood up, sunshine_ , so he smiles and says nothing important and they go back to her place.

He can't get it up. Dean makes sure she's satisfied, tells her how pretty and special she is, and doesn't look back.

Lisa. He likes her, but she never talks about anything but her teaching schedule and chakras. At least he can get it up for her.

Pauline. She's pushy, aggressive. Shoves him around. The sex is hot, but she's possessive and shrill, and he feels the itch to _go_ as soon as he's out the front door.

Matt. Dean doesn't want to remember the look Matt gave him after, like Dean's shocked him, but he thinks of Matt's long, lean body for a long time after he leaves.

Crystal's a stripper, a palate-cleanser – Dean's proud that he knows the phrase, he heard it on TV – and then there's Joyce, Holly, and Missy in rapid succession, and he feels better. Not completely, that's just how Dean Winchester's life works, but improved. Coping.

John goes on a hunt without Dean, and that's fine. Peachy, even. They plan to meet up in Ohio, but it doesn't happen. John isn't answering his phones; none of the other hunters Dean can reach know anything about where he went or what he was hunting.

He has no other options. He's never needed to track John before; other hunters can't see him weak and confused like this. He needs Sam.

Shit. He needs Sam. He hasn't had that thought in almost a year.

He wants to delay, but he can't. John – Dad – might be hurt. He drives to Palo Alto in two days flat, and then has to find Sam's new place, because he's moved in the time since Dean's first visit.

There's a girl. He doesn't know her name, but she's tall and blonde and leggy, and how flop-haired Sammy Winchester scored a babe of her magnitude is totally a mystery, until he spots Sam.

He's filled out; grown another couple of inches. He's twice as beautiful as ever, and Dean can't stop the way his breath stutters and his heart lurches when he sees his little brother. Dean feels the familiar ache of that first year, opening his eyes every morning without Sam close enough to touch.

He waits for nightfall, then for the building to go quiet, then for the lights in Sam and the girl's unit to go dark.

~~

After the scuffle in the kitchen and Jess bouncing away in a huff after Dean leers at her, Sam takes hold of Dean's arm and tows him into the breakfast nook, shoving him into a chair.

“Why are you here, Dean?” Sam looks tired, and hurt, and weirdly fragile.

“Dad's missing. Hunting trip, hasn't checked in for a while. We need to go find him.” Sam's unimpressed, which Dean expected, but he's not entirely hostile. “Sammy, listen –”

“It's Sam now, Dean. Not Sammy. Why do you think I'd go with you? You sent me away almost four years ago, and I haven't even _talked_ to you in two. Why should I even care what happens with Dad?”

Something clicks in Dean's brain. “That's my Zeppelin shirt. You stole my shirt when you left.”

Sam jerks like he's been electrocuted. “Shut up.”

“You took my shirt! After all the screaming about what an asshole I am, you took my fucking shirt!”

Frustrated, Sam wrestles the shirt off and flings it at Dean. “Have it back if you're more concerned about your shirt than the fact that you sent me away and never fucking visited, not once!”

“What are you talking about? Sam, you left. You wanted away from me, remember?”

Sam rubs his face with his hands. Dean wants to kiss every knuckle and press his own cheeks into those broad palms, but _Sam left_ and that's no longer his right.

Dean rises from the chair and straightens his jacket; drops the crumpled t-shirt on the table. “Keep it. I don’t need it any more. Go on back to bed with your girlfriend, I'm sure she's waiting.”

Dean's at the door when Sam says, “Two bedrooms. We have separate rooms.” He heaves a deep sigh. “I'm her... _beard_. And she's mine.”

“What's that?”

“It means we're both gay, Dean, and covering for each other. Pretending to be a couple. So people don't treat us like shit.” Sam wants to crawl through the floor. When he left, he swore he wouldn't let himself fall back into Dean's orbit, no matter how brightly he shone, and it was pointless. Dean's like a fucking magnet and Sam is iron filings. He's helpless to resist the pull, and he has been since he was nine and first understood that Dean was beautiful, and then when he was fourteen and realized that not only was he gay, but he was particularly gay for his older brother.

_Christ, I'm fucked up._

“Jess is a lesbian? Damn, dude.”

“ _Focus_ , you asshole. Did you even think about me? Do I matter, did I ever?”

Dean takes in the words, but can't make sense of them. _Sam_ left, not Dean. Dean stayed because he was needed, and Sam left. Dean needed Sam, but _Sam didn't stay_. “What?”

“You never came to see me.”

Dean remembers standing outside the Student Union Building at Christmas, watching Sam drink fancy coffee with his friends, laughing and happy without Dean. He remembers watching Sam shop for basketball shoes the following spring, with two guys and a girl, and wanting to come rushing in when the two guys shoved him into the fountain in the middle of the shopping mall. He remembers the first day of classes of Sam's third year, and following him into a lecture hall where a professor droned on about the Civil War torches, or something. He remembers more like that.

“You looked happy. I didn't want to get in your way.” Dean scowls, but doesn't open the door.

Sam stares at his brother in amazement for a moment. “You didn't want to get in my _way_?” He's up and moving before either of them can think, and he's got Dean pinned to the kitchen door. “I didn't leave _you_ , Dean. I thought you'd come with me, or you'd catch up later. I wanted you to come _with_ me. You fucking idiot.”

Dean's done thinking. His head hurts, he's pretty sure Sammy just told him they could have been together all this time and he _wants_ , he just wants so much to have back what he lost, so he leans up and kisses his brother.

Sam responds by pressing closer, and Dean's been hard since he got pinned, but finding that Sam is too, that's what he _needs_. "So fucking hot," he breathes out across Sam's cheek, and pushes up to meet him.

Sam whines, _"Dean."_

"Where's your room, baby boy? Got lube?"

Sam's gotten _fast_ since Dean let him go. He tows Dean down the short hallway, past a closed door that must belong to Jess, and throws him onto the bed.

Dad can wait another couple of hours.


End file.
